


I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This

by Inkribbon796



Series: Masks and Maladies [56]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Cursed objects, Gen, Illusions, Mental Disintegration, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Virgil is still a Dark Side, cause that’s exactly what happens, fear projections, irresponsible sword wielding skills, no ships yet, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:27:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23153230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkribbon796/pseuds/Inkribbon796
Summary: Origin story. The Sides weren’t always a poorly held together group of personalities. They were once one man, and Thomas is trying to have fun with his friends until his whole sense of self literally falls apart.
Series: Masks and Maladies [56]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538131
Kudos: 54





	I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This

**Author's Note:**

> Also can be titled as: Local Florida Man becomes seven equally gay Florida men.

It was a nice calm day, close enough to the start of Spring for people to call it that, but also far enough away that Thomas wasn’t quite thinking about his birthday.

Thomas was at his house for it, him and his friends. Joan was late, but Thomas was sure that it was traffic. They were watching _Rent_ when Joan walked in, something hidden under their coat and a huge smile on their face.

“The real party’s here!” Joan called out, kicking the door closed.

“Where have you been?” Valery called out.

“So I was helping Rico move and he’s got all this weird stuff from his batshit crazy uncle and this looks awesome. They said I could have it.”

“Please tell me it’s not a sex toy,” Thomas pleaded.

Joan’s smile got wider, “No, sides I don’t want anything used. Nah, this is cooler. I think it might actually be haunted.”

“As if,” Valerie scoffed, as she leaned over to try and look underneath Joan’s coat. “What is it?”

Joan wiped off their coat like a show host, “Voila!”

Underneath Joan’s coat looked like a super old camera, or at least a replica of an old camera. While Thomas couldn’t remember the name of it, the camera looked like an accordion in the front and had a large lens. It was black with a spattering of what would have been blood if the coloring wasn’t a neon pink. The spattering for a split second looked like a mustache, but Thomas figured he was just seeing patterns where they didn’t exist.

“Is that a camera?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah it’s old,” Talyn asked. “But so what?”

Joan smiled as they started showing the hollowed out back of it. The thing was basically a hard metal shell. “Empty right?”

Joan held up the camera and started turning the crank, starting to film the first person in view, which happened to be Thomas.“Watch this fucking shit,” Joan said, and Talyn leaned their head in to get a closer look.

Then something shot out of the empty back of it, almost like an old projector. The film was grainy and seemed to be stuttered. Which Thomas was sure that A: that wasn’t how the camera was supposed to work; and B: there was nothing inside the camera to actually make it do that.

“How’s it doing that?” Thomas walked up to see the video on the way of himself, an entire rainbow of color lighting up his face and eyes, everything else was a color of dirt brown and grey.

“Don’t know, bet we could get at least something for this shit though.” Joan smiled. “Least it looks cute.”

Thomas tried looking at the inside of it, his hands about to take it from Joan’s when the camera began to shake violently and Joan dropped it, unable to hold onto it.

Moving before he could think, Thomas instinctively lunged for it.

People often try not to dwell on it, or wonder aimlessly about the last thoughts they’d have before they died. Thomas had never really been one of those people. Trying to focus on things important to him and focus on the good that people can do.

_Oh no, it’s falling!_ Thomas thought in surprise. It was, unfortunately, the last conscious thought that _“Thomas Sanders”_ would ever think ever again.

Thomas grabbed it, barely able to snag it from hitting the floor and for a millisecond he felt relief. However he didn’t have the chance to process that thought or even move it from it’s position before he felt a white hot flash of pain, stronger than anything he had ever experienced. His brain didn’t even have time to register that he was in pain.

Something in Thomas shattered, as if something inhuman had taken a stick and broken a mirror, the uneven and unequal pieces blasting out from around him. Light engulfed the room and he was left with the camera in his hands and everyone staring at him in shock and concern. His eyes almost purple, he was leaning back against the stairs.

The first thing this anxious fracture did, was drop the camera and start screaming, feeling overwhelmed and terrified that there were now six other copies of himself. All of them were wearing what Thomas had been wearing seconds ago. The anxious fracture’s head was filling with static, he couldn’t think, he could barely feel.

Everyone else in the room was either one of the dazed pieces, or were one of Thomas’s stunned friends who still had no idea what was happening.

One of the other fractures picked himself up, looking over at the anxious side’s crying and sobbing form, his voice starting to go hoarse from his screaming, and walked over from the spot he’d crashed down by the T.V. A rather mischievous glint in his almost glowing green eyes.

Reaching down he began shaking the anxious side, “Stop screaming!” He screeched right back, making the anxious side start screaming even more, which made the green-eyed side shake him and screech like a banshee.

“That’s not helping,” another side with yellow eyes groaned, hitting his head lightly against the door, his skin starting to crack along the left side of his face, flaking off to reveal snake scales. “Now they’re both screaming.”

“Not ideal,” another of the sides spoke up, a dark blue eyed side, his tone was almost flat and he’d crashed pretty heavily against the table legs. Joan was closer to him and they were just staring at the version of Thomas in front of them, torn between wanting to help and not knowing what to do.

When it was obvious that he was in pain, Joan looked at Talyn, “Get the first aid kit.”

“I am not grievously injured, merely stunned,” he forced out, clearly trying to get his body to work.

“Yeah,” Joan commented, “cause that’s what fine looks like.”

The green eyed Thomas whipped his head around, his screaming and shaking stopped dead as he immediately blurted out, “Your ass is fine!”

Now that his head was turned, Joan and the others could see that the two were changing like the one by the door was. It was slow, the purple fracture was steadily gaining dark shadows under his eyes, the skin looking paler by comparison until it was slowly making the natural freckles on Thomas’s face almost invisible. The fracture with Dark green eyes was now sporting a slightly curved mustache with dark shadows growing under his eyes as well.

“Thanks, I think,” Joan said.

Joan helped up the one with dark blue eyes, he seemed to be squinting at everything, as if it was hard for him to see. He braced himself against the table. “There was a box I had moments before, where is it.”

“I had it,” one of the other fractures still lying by the T.V said, his eyes a deep red.

“Impossible,” he responded, trying to look in the direction of the voice. Joan looked over at the counter where Thomas had put his glasses. Quickly they went around the table to grab it and handed it over to this new . . . Well Joan wasn’t sure if it was a copy or what but he didn’t talk like Thomas did.

“Oh thank you,” he commented and put them on finally able to see the room. “As it was obvious that I was the one who was holding the box.”

He froze when he saw the state of the room. “Fascinating.”

The fracture by the window that had been mostly silent up til now finally sat up, feeling his face with a look of confusion. His eyes a pale, almost glowing blue. “I don’t feel good.”

“Ahh,” the version of Thomas with his glasses looked over towards the stairs. The camera had fallen away from the two sides that had been screaming at each other. “There it is.”

He walked over and carefully picked it up, inspecting the empty camera interior. “However did it work?”

“Hey!” The mustached side shot up, clearly upset. “That’s mine!”

“Hardly.”

“Listen, Specs,” the red side huffed as he stood up, his legs a bit shaky. “It’s obvious that you’re not the real one, so just drop it.”

Then he summoned a sword with a golden hilt, pointing it at _“Specs”_ and puffing up his chest. Everyone else in the room except for the two of them, and the green side, flinched or took a reflexive step back.

Specs looked at the sword, more curious than intimidated, adjusting his glasses with almost his whole hand. “Interesting. But still, I believe that you are the one who is mistaken. Put that away before you hurt yourself or someone else.

Joan out of the corner of their eyes saw the front door open but they didn’t want to take their eyes off the guy who had summoned a sword from thin air. Talyn was still in the kitchen, so by the fact that they weren’t screaming or gasping in shock or pain, Joan assumed everything was still fine.

The two of them continued arguing, the red side summoning up a shield. Between just the tree of the them, the argument getting louder and louder, there seemed almost this undercurrent of static. No one noticed it until it was too late.

“Stop,” a whimper from the stairs went unheeded by almost everybody, the anxious side seemed to curl in on himself, the static starting to pitch up. “Please, stop.”

The arguing just kept going but slowly more and he looked around for anything he could use, but all he could see was the other side in front of him, he was just staring down at his hands as if fascinated by them moving.

The feeling of isolation dug itself even deeper. It was too much, too loud. The anxious side began to hyperventilate, covering his ears. “Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!”

At his screams, he finally had attention drawn to him again. At his last more desperate scream, a wave seemed to pass over the room, a choking, heavy weight. Everyone was momentarily blinded for a second and there was a dull, muted THUD of a sword and metal shield hitting the carpet.

Then, blissful silence washed over the room. The only sounds was the anxious side’s heavy breathing.

Slowly that labored breathing was joined when the light blue side jumped up, eyes wide at what seemed to an outside observer to be nothing, but his back hit the wall. He began to brush an invisible presence off his arms. “Spiders! Spiders! Get them off, get them off!”

He was shaking, starting to cry in panic. Everyone else was frozen in fear, Talyn looked horrified and Joan looked like they were rearing back to kick at whatever invisible thing was in front of them.

There was a dull laugh from the couch, an uneasy one that sent shivers down the anxious side’s spine. This side had glowing orange eyes. “That’s fucked up.”

The first one to regain his composure, was the red side. He immediately picked up his sword, glaring at the anxious side. “You fiend! Release us this instant.”

Frantic to get away from the very angry man with a very sharp sword, he tried to scurry away but his back hit the stairs. He felt trapped, there was only the stairs to go to and the anxious side knew that he couldn’t escape up there. “I didn’t— I’m not—”

The red side lifted his sword, his eyes darting to the space around him but before he could actually get anywhere near the anxious side, a hand grabbed his and threw him away.

“That’s quite enough,” the yellow eyed side interrupted, multiple arms shooting out of him, immediately grabbing onto the anxious side and there was a flurry of sound and everything went staticky before finally everything settled and he had no idea where he was, just in a protective cocoon of arms, the noise mounting and clawing at the inside of his head. He was rolled into as tight of a ball as he could.

“I didn’t mean to,” the anxious side begged. “I’m sorry.”

Something landed on top of his head, and he flinched before he realized it was a hat.

“Stay here, stay quiet,” the yellow-eyed side ordered.

The anxious side nodded.

“If you make too much noise, they will find you Anxiety,” he ordered.

“Wait, what?” The anxious side answered but his rescuer was already gone. So all he could do was wait in the blissful, pure silence of wherever the hell park he was in, and pulled the hat down to cover his face.

All too quickly the silence was broken when the yellow eyed side returned with two more people, the mustached side and the one with orange eyes.

“I was having fun,” the green side scoffed as he was pushed closer to the anxious side. The final, mostly silent one just laid down on the ground.

“Hardly, you were about to get stabbed,” the yellowed eyed side smoothly took the hat off Anxiety’s head to put on his own head. “It seems we find ourselves in a very interesting place.”

“You dragged us out to the middle of nowhere,” the orange-eyed side scoffed.

“Unless that’s what you wanted,” the mustached side smiled, leaning a bit too close to the serpentine side. “So, Scales, what now?”

“Call me Deceit,” he corrected. “No sense in all of us being called _“Thomas”_ now is there?”

“I never liked that name in the first place,” the orange side agreed.

“I want my name to be Dukey,” the mustache side blurted out.

“Why?” Anxiety demanded, deciding he liked the name that Deceit had given him, probably a bit too much. “Why that?”

“Cause it upsets you,” the Duke smiled.

While the two of them traded barbs, Anxiety made a little easier by the fact that the Duke’s volume was lower and no one else was joining it. He even had some personal space to breath.

Deceit walked over to the orange-eyed side, “And what should we call you?”

“Pffff,” the side scoffed. “I don’t know, call me Orange until I think of something.”

“Unimaginative,” Deceit critiqued.

“I didn’t need saving you know,” Orange looked up at him. “I was fine on the couch.”

“You really think those three are going to just let you sit around?” Deceit scoffed.

“Point,” Orange shrugged. “I’m taking a nap.”

“Anxiety, Duke,” Deceit called out, both of them stopped their bickering to look at him.

“What D-man?” The Duke smiled at him.

“It is apparently clear to me that the situation in the apartment would not have occurred if Anxiety’s discontent was noted sooner,” Deceit said.

“Discontent?” Anxiety repeated. “That’s what you’re calling it.”

“We’re going to make people listen to us,” Deceit proclaimed. “One way or the other.”

“Cool story, but how are we doing that?” Anxiety asked, not sure if he wanted to run into the other three again.

“Simple, I have some ideas, but I cannot accomplish our goals without help,” Deceit smiled, looking between the two sides standing in front of him.

Back at the apartment the logical side just stared at the light blue side, clearly unsure how to help the still panicking individual. He was rocking back and forth. Talyn had covered him in a blanket and they were trying to talk him out of his panic attack, the logical side had been trying to help but it seemed like everything that should logically work was falling a bit flat for him.

Joan was watching the door, not wanting a fifth part of Thomas to run off without keeping their eyes on him. “Hey, Specs, Prince is coming back.”

“Oh great,” he spat, looking towards the door as the red side walked in with his sword.

“I couldn’t find them,” the prince grumbled. “They all disappeared on me.”

The logical side stomped over and grabbed the prince by the front of his shirt. “You cannot leave me with him again, my words do not soothe him.”

“Let go of me,” the prince pushed him off. “The lovable Roman should never have to be subject to so much mistreatment.”

The response was so unexpected that it took the logical side by surprise, “What?”

“Yeah, you can’t treat me like that,” Roman proclaimed.

“No, I’ll get back to your proclivity to run off, but a mere five minutes ago you were proclaiming yourself as Thomas along with the rest of us,” the logical side was looking him up and down.

Roman shrugged, setting his sword on the table, the logical side gave Roman a rather sharp look at the action. Then Roman looked at the side still on the ground. “He okay?”

“No,” the logical side sighed. “You left him with me.”

Roman approached calmly, and in his hands appeared a Pomeranian puppy. “Hey, you like dogs?”

The light blue side stopped, transfixed by the dog the instant it appeared.

“We cannot possibly care for a pet at this time,” the logical side huffed.

“Grow a heart Mr. Roboto,” Roman told him.

“So fluffy,” the more emotion side’s eyes were almost sparkling, the puppy excitedly licking his face. “Good puppy.”

“See, he’s calm,” Roman boasted.

“So long as he is not given a live animal every time this happens,” the logical side was looking at the sword on the table. “Is that a real sword?”

“Yeah, why?” Roman asked. “Feels real to me.”

“Fascinating,” the logical side walked over and grabbed a pen from the nearby counter to start poking it.

“Hey!” Roman barked. “Back those claws up, Nerdy Wolverine.”

“None of those things are my name,” the logical side argued.

“Well you’ve never said your name,” Roman rolled his eyes, taking his sword back.

“I had a perfectly fine name,” the logical side argued back.

“If I don’t get to be Thomas, then you don’t either,” Roman argued back.

“What about Logan?”

Both Roman and the logical side looked at the light blue empathetic side who was standing with his new puppy, the blanket loosely draped over his shoulders.

“I beg your pardon,” the logical side said, his tone a bit cold.

“You know, cause you’re so logical and smart,” he grinned.

That seemed to calm the logical side down, whether it was from the words alone or the compliment. “Well, I am intelligent. Logan it is.”

“What about you buttercup?” Roman smiled.

“Ooh, ooh,” the light blue side bounced up and down. “Patton.”

“Why’s that?” Logan asked.

“Cause I’m Patton-ly adorable,” Patton smiled.

Joan began cackling, “I see someone got Thomas’s puns.”

Logan was glaring at him before something dawned on him, “Wait, did you make my name a pun as well?”

Patton’s smile got wider.

“No, wait,” Logan began to mentally backpedal. “I rescind, I will not have my name be a joke.”

“Too late,” Roman decided. “ _Logan_ it is.”

“Names, good,” Joan interrupted. “Roman, Logan, Patton. So can one of you tell me how my friend became seven people?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Logan answered, walking back over with Joan to the camera. “But I’ll make it my new life’s mission to find out.”

“What about the others?” Patton asked.

“What about them?” Roman scoffed and summoned a sheath to put his sword in.

“Shouldn’t we go out and find them?”

“You really want to tangle with the dragon?” Roman rolled his eyes. “Next we meet it will be blade versus blade in an epic duel of the fates.”

“Hey, Romeo, don’t know if we’re talking about the same person,” Valerie chimed in, “but chuckles on the stairs wasn’t exactly fighting back.”

“He could summon illusions,” Roman dismissed, “it was obviously an act.”

Patton frowned but smiled when he looked at the puppy in his hands. “Who’s a good boy? Are you a good boy?”

“We should come up with a name to call ourselves,” Roman decided. “How about Roman and his Merry Band?”

“Absolutely not,” Logan looked up from the camera. “That discussion should be tabled until we figure out what happened and restore ourselves to our true state.”

Roman groaned but turned back to Patton and his dog, smiling at them as he walked over, the two talking with Thomas’s friends as Logan and Joan looked over the camera.

A new peace fell over the room, as the new additions to the apartment began to settle in. They would all grow into their skin, their colored eyes changing back to Thomas’s normal brown and they’ have to find new ways to distinguish themselves between each other.

Joan in particular was quickly picking up that all three of them were slowly deviating, both from how Thomas usually reacted to things and acting very distinctly from each other. But every once in a while one of them would do something that would remind Talyn or Valerie of Thomas.

It took awhile for everyone to adjust, everyone working in their own way to figure themselves out. All the while the specter of _“the Dark Sides”_ as Roman indelicately called them looked in the back of their mind. There was no noise from the four that had left the apartment, but Logan wasn’t as foolhardy as Roman to think they were gone for good.

He would make sure they were ready when they returned, and like Patton he hoped that the reunion would be pleasant. But Logan was braced for it not to be at the same time.


End file.
